Canada’s UNESCO World Heritage Sites: Who’s Next for Consideration?

In 2012, Canada is hoping to add these nine unique historical and cultural hot spots to the fifteen sites of environmental and historical significance already on the United Nations Education, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) list.

This outpost of Newfoundland and Labrador is one of the best-preserved <a href="http://www.pc.gc.ca/eng/progs/spm-whs/itm3/site9.aspx">Basque whaling station</a> sites from the 16th-century, including cooperages, workshops, dwelling and wharves onshore to submerged discoveries offshore of Iberian sailing vessels, including three whaling ships.

In the Nunavut Territory, <a href="http://www.pc.gc.ca/eng/progs/spm-whs/itm3/site8.aspx">Quttinirpaaq</a> (a <a href="http://www.pc.gc.ca/pn-np/nu/quttinirpaaq/index.aspx">national park</a>) is mainly ice cap with glaciers, fjords and freshwater ice and the Innuitian Mountains. During its brief summer this arctic oasis transforms to a habitat for muskoxen, the endangered Peary caribou and includes archaeological sites of all pre-contact groups to have occupied the High Arctic.

An <a href="http://www.pc.gc.ca/lhn-nhs/ns/grandpre/index.aspx">archeological site</a> of 17th- to 20th-century life of the Acadian people, this area provides cultural artifacts about the lives of these people, as well as what led to the forced removal and migration. Memorials to the Acadians help explain the ascent and revival of this distinct society originally established in Nova Scotia.

The Avalon Peninsula of Newfoundland and Labrador is home to caribou and icebergs, and the discovery area for fossils of soft-bodied animals preserved in rock at <a href="http://www.pc.gc.ca/eng/progs/spm-whs/itm3/site7.aspx">Mistaken Point</a>, thanks to volcanic eruptions 560–575 million years ago. This site has provided impressions of Ediacaran fronds, discs and spindles found nowhere else on earth.

In southeastern Alberta near the Milk River, <a href="http://www.pc.gc.ca/eng/progs/spm-whs/itm3/site1.aspx">Aisinai’pi</a>, a <a href="http://www.albertaparks.ca/siteinformation.aspx?id=177">provincial park</a>, features more than 50 petroglyphs expressing the physical and spirit world of the Niitsitapi people. The rock art tells us about their world pre- and post-contact with European explorers.

These areas are <a href="http://www.pc.gc.ca/eng/progs/spm-whs/itm3/site4.aspx">three distinct national and territorial parks</a> of the Yukon Territory: <a href="http://www.pc.gc.ca/pn-np/yt/ivvavik/index.aspx">Ivvavik</a> is home to the Richardson Mountains and a high concentration of grizzly bears. <a href="http://www.pc.gc.ca/pn-np/yt/vuntut/index.aspx">Vuntut</a>’s Old Crow Flats is an area of lakes, ponds, rivers and tundra that's a key waterfowl breeding ground. <a href="http://www.env.gov.yk.ca/parksconservation/HerschelIslandQikiqtaruk.php">Herschel Island</a>, Canada's first territorial park, is known for its well-preserved ice-age fauna.

Ivvavik National Park (Photo: Gov't of Yukon/Marten Berkman)

Ivvavik, Vuntut and Herschel Island

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A <a href="http://www.pc.gc.ca/eng/progs/spm-whs/itm3/site3.aspx">unique environment</a> off the coast of British Columbia in the Haida Gwaii (or "Islands of the People", formerly the Queen Charlotte Islands), the area encompasses old-growth rainforests, underwater kelp forests and high concentrations of seabirds, sea lions, killer whales and migrating gray whales, as well as remnants of Haida settlements. Gwaii Haanas would include the existing <a href="http://www.pc.gc.ca/eng/progs/spm-whs/itm2/site5.aspx">SGaang Gwaay World Heritage Site</a>.

This <a href="http://www.pc.gc.ca/eng/progs/spm-whs/itm3/site11.aspx">boreal forest</a> in the Canadian shield area of Manitoba and Ontario provides a protected habitat for woodland caribou and lynx, wolves, bears and wolverines. The area also contains red ochre pictographs of animals and humans—murals from Aboriginal people dating back to the melting of the ice shield.

The <a href="http://www.pc.gc.ca/eng/progs/spm-whs/itm3/site6.aspx">Klondike gold rush region</a> of British Columbia and the Yukon Territory has a long history as a home to wildlife and Aboriginal peoples. Highlights of the gold rush era (1896–1898) include the <a href="http://www.pc.gc.ca/lhn-nhs/yt/chilkoot/index.aspx">Chilkoot Trail</a> from the Alaska coast to the Yukon, still-active gold mines and historic district of Dawson.